


Ridin The Storm Out

by moreculturelesspop



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Birth, Childbirth, Discussion of Abortion, F/M, Graphic Description, Late Term Miscarriage, Miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:28:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24216685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moreculturelesspop/pseuds/moreculturelesspop
Summary: “Fuck you, turning up two weeks later and trying to make it about you. I had to give birth to our child alone in a motel room in Nevada."
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	Ridin The Storm Out

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning regarding graphic miscarriage and stillbirth. Lots of angst. Title from Reo Speedwagon song.

“Have you seen Elena lately?” Bobby asks Dean down the phone. 

“Nah, been some months.” As far as he’s aware Bobby didn’t know about the biannually cabin weekends, even Sam doesn’t know exactly who the lucky lady is. He just sees the scratch marks down Dean’s back. He takes a step out of the motel room to carry on the call, leaving Sam behind with his research.

“You should check in on her, kid,” he says.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, noting the concern in Bobby’s voice. He leans against Baby, bracing himself for the news of a terrible wolf attack, a bar fight gone wrong, an abduction by a vamps nest, but what he says is somehow more shocking to him.

“She didn’t tell you she’s knocked up?”

“She’s what?” he shouts, before glancing back at the hotel room.

“I take it you haven’t had that conservation yet,” he growls. “I told her she had to talk to you about it. You kids and your communication.” 

“Yeah,” he chuckles, running a rough hand down his face “We seemed to have missed that one.”

“She seemed a little down on the last call. Since you’re in town, thought you might want to check in on her,” Dean lets out a shaky breath. “She’s been hiding out in the cabin for a while. She might appreciate the company.”

“Did she tell-“

“I know more than you all think,” he answers. Dean’s not even sure what he was going to ask. Was it his? Was she okay? Did she tell Bobby about their long-running _thing_? “If you need time to process, I’ll send-”

“It’s fine,” he says clearing his throat. “Since I’m in the area.” He doesn’t remember much else of the conversation, Bobby starts talking about cases and hunters like Dean hadn’t just been told he was going to be a father. When he hangs up, he stares at the empty motel lot in shock, mind racing before going back inside.

“What was it?” Sam says, not looking up from his research. When Dean doesn’t reply, Sam looks up to see Dean’s shocked face. “Is Bobby okay?”

“Uh, yeah,” Dean stutters. “Yeah, all okay. I’m gonna need to head out and see someone. You okay finishing this alone? I’ll be back in a day or so.”

“Yeah, sure. You okay?”

“Yeah,” he sighs, rubbing his eyes. “Just need to help a friend out.”

He packs some things and stuffs it into the trunk. He’s not sure what to expect from the trip. Would she want company? Was there a reason she didn’t tell him? Would she even be at _their_ cabin? He uses the three-hour drive to think of what to say to her. Was he really going to be a dad? Would she want him to be a father, or just an uncle who came about once a year. Maybe this was a sign he should retire, quit the life and go apple pie.

Her car is parked outside the cabin gathering leaves and dirt. He knocks on the door, a lump in his throat. She opens it, gun raised, vodka bottle in the other hand. “It’s you.”

“It’s me,” Dean replies with a gulp. She doesn’t look as different as he thought she would. He doesn’t see a bump through her t-shirt, she’s a little rounder but she didn’t look pregnant, not that he really knows what a pregnant Elena would look like. She puts down the gun and turns her back to him, throwing it carelessly on the table. He closes the door behind him, as she pours herself a shot of vodka at the kitchenette work top. “You got something to tell me?” 

“Bobby told you, didn’t he?” She downs the shot without a wince. She looked terrible, none of that pregnancy glow he’s heard about. She had dark circles under her eyes, her hair is unbrushed and unwashed and her movements twitchy. “About the baby?”

“Yeah. Is it mine?” 

“Fuck you,” she pours another shot and downs it in one swift movement. “Yeah, it was.”

“Was? You got rid of it?”

“What’s it to you?” she spits. She opens the fridge and pulls a beer for him.

“I don’t know Elena, a guy should probably know when his baby gets aborted!” he shouts.

“Because you are such great dad material. Dean Winchester, who goes to the afterlife once a year. Bringing children into the hunters life has worked out so well for the Winchesters hasn’t it!” she screams. He can’t argue with any of her points, as painful as they are. “Anyway, I lost it.” And another shot is drunk.

“Lost it?”

“Yeah. Inevitable miscarriage they call it,” she almost spits out those words, tears pooling in her eyes. “So you don’t need to worry about it.” She laughs bitterly, before pouring another drink.

“Worry about it? I’ve just found out about it.” It feels cruel to call _it_ an it, it was a person, a child, a soul.

“Dean, you know as well as I that you’re a hunter through and through. You’d never give that up, not really.”

“For you I would have,” he says. He’s not sure if he means it.

She laughs at him, bitter and dry. “Bet you say that to all the girls you knock up.” He never stuck around to see if there were any consequences to his one-night stands. The nearest he had come to this was when he was seventeen and Jennifer Souza thought she was pregnant, he breathed a sigh of relief when the test came back negative.

The cabin was their spot to pretend they were normal. A bad job or a tough injury to recover from, and they’d text each other the phrase ‘Ridin The Storm Out’. They’d meet, turn off their phones and spend the following days enjoying each other. Sometimes it was sex, sometimes it was lying naked in bed enjoying the silence, or sometimes they would just talk and she’d cry and he’d curse. When they encountered each other on the road, neither of them would interact with the other, she’d pretend she was disgusted by his eating habits and he’d pretend she was a stuck-up bitch. It had worked well for years and years. In all that time he’d seen broken ribs, split lips, black eyes and even stab wounds, but he’d never seen her look so defeated.

“What happened?” he doesn’t want to hear the answer, but he has to know.

“I don’t know. Could have been anything. Doctors said there is nothing wrong for me, this shit just happens. Could have been the diet, some knock at the start I never knew about, stress, an existing injury, it could have been anything and nothing.”

“That’s what happens to people around me, they die,” Dean growls. He starts pacing up and down the cabin. “It’s me!”

“Fuck you!” she screams, stopping him in his tracks. “Fuck you, turning up two weeks later and trying to make it about you,” she slaps him across the face, it’s sharp but he knows she’s going easy on him “I had to give birth to our child alone in a motel room in Nevada. I bled for so long I had to go to hospital for a transfusion,” she starts hitting his chest, tears streaming down her face “So don’t you come here and try to make this about you and your fucking guilt. Not when I had to take our dead baby to hospital in a bloody ziplocked bag.”

He lets her beat his chest, tears streaming down her face, the hits weakening each time, until she collapses into his arms. He brings her to the floor and holds her whilst she sobs into his arms. It’s not the quiet tears he was so used to seeing from her, the little pools of water that would run down her perfect tanned skin. Those he could kiss away and tell her it would get better soon, these sobs were making her whole body shake. He couldn’t lie to her, this wasn’t going to get better any time soon. This was the type of pain that scarred your bones and twisted your insides.

“You should have called me,” he whispers into her ponytail. “I’d have been there straight away.”

“I did,” she murmurs into his now tear-soaked t-shirt. “I did.” He stops, his arms gripping her back, he remembers the phone call. He doesn’t remember what he was doing, it was certainly less important than Elena bleeding out in a Nevada room with their child between her legs. When he saw it was her number, he had put his phone back in his pocket and carried on. He thought he would call her back later, but he never did. “I’m sorry,” she starts to repeat, her hands clinging to his arms. He holds her until she calms and pulls away from him, her breath raggedy.

“Come to the sofa,” he whispers, hands outstretched. He helps her off the floor, unsure at how to handle her.

“Give me a minute,” she says wiping away the tears. She goes to the bathroom whilst Dean takes the beer from the kitchen worktop and sets himself down on the sofa, folding his jacket over the back of the floral material. “Are you okay?” she asks, reappearing from the bathroom having wiped her tears away.

“It’s a lot.”

“Tell me about it,” she says, taking a seat next to him. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I was so sure you’d tell me to get rid of it. That wasn’t the right choice for me. Which in hindsight was a fucking stupid decision, even the baby could tell.”

“You’d be a great mom,” he says, putting his hand on top of hers. “You’re right. I would have.” He doesn’t know that she is right. When Bobby told him on the phone, the idea of getting rid of it wasn’t an immediate thought. Instead, he immediately thought about changing his name and running to Canada. They’d bring up a family of beautiful children with his freckles and their mother’s tanned skin. She’d teach them Spanish and he’d teach them guitar. He’d teach them to shoot and she’d yell at him about it. No demon would ever find them, and he’d finally consider the concept of growing old.

“It’s was a little girl. She was small and purple, but she was a baby, my baby,” she takes an audible gulp. “I thought it would be some bleeding and some cramps but I didn’t expect labor. I didn’t expect my water to break. I had hours of contractions and I pushed out a little girl. I was expecting a cluster of cells, a bloody mess that I could disassociate myself with,” He wants to tell her to stop, she’ll cry again and he’ll feel guilty but he needs to know everything. She has to share her burden with him, if he’d picked up the call they could have gone to hospital sooner or at least she’d have someone to hold her hand during delivery. “It’s so hard that to describe it as a late miscarriage. I gave birth to a child; I held her body. She was breathing for the first few seconds. She has no birth certificate, no death certificate.”

“Fuck,” he gulps. 

“You know you only get the bad bits of labor, not the good bits, the contractions and the throwing up and the pain but none of the love and the excitement and the happiness. I took painkillers, what more damage could I do? There was blood everywhere, my dead daughter in my arms. I thought I would die there, that I deserved to die there. But I remembered the really nice Colombian cleaner and I didn’t want her to have to find me and find her, both dead. My mom worked as a cleaner, she found a heroin addict once, overdosed and nearly dead, that image stayed with her.” She called the hospital because of a cleaner that reminded her of her mother, Dean smiles, not because of her own health.

“I would have been there, if I had known. Would have done everything I could.” He grips onto her hands because he wants her to know he really means it.

“Not even Dean Winchester can stop miscarriages.”

“She would have been real beautiful,” he gently tells her. She lets go of his hands and leans forward to pick her phone off the table. She flicks through some pictures before finding the right one, she hands the device to Dean. It’s an image of a tiny baby, purple and veiny, eyes closed and mouth tight. That’s his daughter. Wrapped in a bloody towel is his daughter

“Anastasia. The patron saint of healers, martyrs and exorcists,” she whispers, placing a hand on his shoulder. He can’t take his eyes off the photo, it may be the only child of his own he’ll ever see. He wishes he was there to hold her, to make sure she left the Earth with those who made her. As much as they’d both like to dismiss it, she was made out of love by two people whose paths would crossover but never align. “It felt weird to take a photo. I just wanted some proof she was here.” Dean looks down at Elena’s nearly flat stomach, almost back to the size it was when they last met.

“Do you have any pictures of you pregnant,” he whispers, his voice cracked and hoarse. She takes the phone back and swipes before landing on a selfie taken in a full length mirror. She’s cradling a surprisingly big bump. Her breasts are bigger and her face rounder, she looks happy and peaceful. How could he ever look at that and ask her to abort their child?

“Last picture, four days beforehand. 20 weeks.” He has to look away from her, biting his lip to hold back tears. He’s grieving something he didn’t know existed five hours ago, a picture taken on a smartphone, but really he is grieving a concept he imagined on the car ride to the cabin. He’s grieving an alternative future he’ll never have. He won’t move to Canada, he’ll go back to the motel room and he’ll probably never hear from Elena again. He doesn’t blame her, they had finally found a storm too big to ride out.

“What now?” He can’t unsee the image of his daughter. Too small and fragile for the world.

“It goes back to normal, like we always do. We change but the world doesn’t.”

“Who knows?”

“Bobby knows half the story, my sister picked me up from the hospital and now you. Being a hunter as a woman is already bad enough, think I want them to patronize me even more. I thought maybe I could disappear, and they’d all think I was dead.”

“Did you want me to think you were dead? Hear from someone else you had disappeared? Never know about our daughter?"

“I don’t know,” she whispers. Resting her chin on his shoulder. “If I could go back, I’d do everything differently.” You can’t think like that, it will eat you up until you lose yourself completely in the guilt, and Dean would know.

“Tell Bobby, if you tell no one else, tell him.” Bobby knows something is wrong, can hear the shake of her voice over the phone, the sadness in her greeting. He thinks she’s scared and lonely, he’s right for all the wrong reasons.

“Tell Sam. Please, make sure you tell Sam. Don’t hide this away.” He won’t tell Sam the truth, it is too complicated, too many years of history to explain. He’ll tell him that someone close died, someone he should have been there for, who he should have picked up the phone for.

“Did you give her a hunters funeral?”

“She didn’t deserve that. She would have had better than this life, I would have made sure of it. I gave her a catholic funeral,” she had harmed no one in her short time on Earth, she knew nothing of the evil lurking in the shadows. “She’s buried here.” A lone tear runs down her face. He leans in towards her and pressing his lips softly to hers. He kisses her single tear away, kissing down her cheek and jaw until he reaches her chest where he buries his head into her sweatshirt. She leans back into the sofa arm, allowing him to fall on top of her. They easily curl up together on the sofa, like familiar choreography to a well-rehearsed dance. She holds him against her body. He should feel embarrassed, he always held her, he was the strong silent one. He remembers vividly holding her after her father died. She could save them from wendigos, demons, and vengeful spirits, but not the cancer that ravaged her family.

He hears her fall asleep, but he can’t close his eyes without picturing their daughter, what she would have looked like as a child, what she would have eaten, how she would have talked. He pictures that motel room, Elena on her knees panting through contractions, collapsing against the side of the moldy bathtub, blood streaked thighs. Whimpering in pain and clutching her stomach, birthing a tiny bloody baby. Blood gushing out of her as she holds the lifeless body of their child.

He carefully untangles himself from her, kissing her on the forehead. He puts another log on the fire, watching the sparks erupt. This was where their child was conceived, in front of the open fire.

He remembers the last weekend he spent here. He had fought with Sam and driven away in rage. He can’t even remember what they fought over. She had arrived first and was cooking when he opened the door. They didn’t talk about work or family, instead they pretended they were a normal couple with mundane jobs and no war wounds. She sat in front of the fire, the night especially cold, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and a glass of whiskey in her hand. He kisses her shoulders and down her back. Never had he had such an urge to tell someone he loved them.

They made love in front of the fireplace, a blanket draped over his naked ass. Their bodies entwined and they almost come together, entirely in sync with each other. In another life he’d marry the woman beneath him, brown eyes heavy with lust, dark curls fanned out around her. In another life he would give up everything to be with her but that world would never exist. All they had were these weekends, and that was all they’d ever have.

He quietly slides on his boots and jacket. The air is mild outside as he walks around to the back of the cabin. In amongst the trees is a little mound of dirt with a cross engraved with the name Anastacia Gonzalez Winchester and a date that would forever be etched into his brain. He audibly swallows at the sight or the tiny mound of dirt.

“Hey,” he whispers. “I’m your Dad. I’m sorry I didn’t get to meet you. I would have liked to, I hope you know that,” his voice cracks as his eyes fill with tears, “Your mommy, she loved you very much. She’s a good woman. She would have been the best, loved you and cared for you, kept you safe and,” he lets out a sob. “I’m sorry fucking sorry.”

“Dean,” he hears a voice behind him croak. He feels her small hand on her back.

“I didn’t know what to say.” What could you say?

“This would have happened no matter what. It would have happened if you picked up the phone. It would have happened if we were accountants living in Idaho. You can’t win them all, Dean.”

“Lets get you inside,” he says. Instead of going back to the sofa, he follows her to the little bedroom. It’s cold and he can see her breath lingering in the air. They quickly strip to their undergarments. He leaves his boxers on, she leaves on her leggings and sports bra. When he fingers at the elastic band around her rib cage, she bats it away.

“It’s to stop the breast milk. Sorry if that’s your kink,” she smiles weakly at him in the dark. Their limbs intertwine until she is pressed against him and his head is rest on top of hers.

“I lo-” he starts, but she leans up to kiss the corner of his mouth.

“Don’t,” she whispers into his lips. She thinks he’s only saying it out of sadness and guilt. He truly does love her. In another world she would be his and they would sleep like this every night. He holds his hand against her lower stomach, there is a slight mound where their baby had once been.

He finally catches some sleep, not letting go of her. They wake up still entwined, and stay until their limbs need to be stretched. They drink coffee and ate bagels in silence until Dean knows he has to go.

“We should come back every year for her birthday,” he breaks the silence.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she quickly says. He knows she is right. Neither of them can make those types of commitments. He’ll visit whenever he’s in the area, remind his daughter that he loves her and she’ll leave flowers and stuffed animals.

“You’ll be okay?” he asks.

“Whiskey and repression, you know?” she smirks. “We’ll keep going because that is what we do,” She turns her back to him to wash up her mug and he wraps his arms around her, kissing her neck. She turns around, hands still wet, and kisses him deeply. “Don’t become a stranger Dean Winchester. I forgive you.”

She might forgive him but he’ll never forgive himself. She’ll text him again seven months later. He arrives early and tells his daughter about the last few months of his life before waiting inside. She’s back to her tough, bitchy self and they fuck on the kitchenette worktop before she can even ask him how he’s been. They don’t talk about Anastasia but he notices the little A tattoo on her hipbone in italics as he’s goes down on her in the shower. He’ll tell his daughter that her mother was doing well. 

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written fanfiction for about a decade. This is my second one in two weeks. Comments always appreciated.


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